Camera… Mirror… Performance

We joined OPENLAB for a project and we are now sharing some results. We asked Antonio de la Fe to write a text about his own vision of OPENLAB's session "Camera… Mirror… Performance :

OPENLAB's session "Camera… Mirror… Performance!" took place on Friday 6 February 2015 at Chisenhale Dance Space.

During that session we (a group of performer-photographers) played with the idea of using cameras and mirrored surfaces. The camera was proposed as an eye that sees, but an eye which is also as much actor as it is spectator, both inside and outside of the performing act simultaneously. This camera-eye was used during our session both as witness and as maker (or at least co-maker) of the performing exploration, and it was used as a point of (self-) reflection. In this way, it was an eye that reproduced copies now available for us to look at, but also served as a "mirror" of mental imagery (self-) representation. Like en eye that reflects in its own surface what its retina is also capturing, like an eye that could be a window both to oneself (through that reflection) and to the other — owner of that eye…

N.B. This description is only my own reflection upon the session. As OPENLAB proposes a shared space for "co-independent" performance practice/work/exploration (co-independent meaning that it is done together, influenced by one another's presences; but at the same time it is done as a personal and unique exploration), the experiences of other participants may differ from those described here.